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> It is a hilarious and catastrophic failure of Linux userspace that the best API for running games on Linux is Win32 Studios don't target Linux, they target W

> It is a hilarious and catastrophic failure of Linux userspace that the best API for running games on Linux is Win32 Studios don't target Linux, they target Windows and sometimes Mac. Imagine if Flappy Bird targeted only iPhone, because there were only 50,000,000 Android users in the world (hardly worth supporting). Then Android creates an iPhone runtime on Android so people can play Flappy Bird on it, and you conclude "iPhone actually worked, this is evidence that Android is a hilarious and catastrophic failure."

winrid 5mo ago
the other way around is kind of how libgdx games run on iOS :)
forrestthewoods 5mo ago
I don't need to imagine a made-up scenario that doesn't make sense. We can look at what has happened at face value. The calculus is very very very boring and simple. Game devs will support every single platform on the planet in which the cost to support that platform - both directly and long-term maintenance - is less than the increased revenue that platform provides. It is not uncommon for indie games on custom engines to support Windows, Playstation, Switch, Switch 2, Xbox. And, depending on the game, iOS or Android. Sometimes macOS although that's increasingly rare. Native Linux builds are pretty rare. Especially before Proton got pretty good with Steamdeck release. Supporting Linux is a monumentally tremendous pain in the ass. Radically more than literally any other platform. It is hands-down the hardest and most painful to support natively. So painful that emulating Win32 is a clear win. Valve's runtime helps a lot. And supporting another path is just a waste of time. Very sad!
- arcfour 5mo ago
  > Supporting Linux is a monumentally tremendous pain in the ass. Radically more than literally any other platform. It is hands-down the hardest and most painful to support natively. Funny, I have the same feelings after 5 seconds of using MSVC or looking at Win32 documentation. Or is it WinRT now, or is it .NET Core, or .NET Framework, or UWP or OLE or COM, or whatever the API du jour is which will be slightly incompatible and incomplete with the rest of the ecosystem in poorly documented and inscrutable ways? Performance profiling and debugging tools are critical for game development. What's your equivalent to strace again, the one that's built into the system natively? There isn't one? All major game engines I am aware of support native Linux builds and have for years, anyways. I guess there's a reason 80% of the servers in the world run Windows. Because it's so hard to develop for. Er, uh...no wait!
  - forrestthewoods 5mo ago
    Sarcasm is an extremely poor method of communication. Speak plainly and clearly. > Performance profiling and debugging tools are critical for game development. Profiling and debugging tools are RADICALLY superior on Windows. RADICALLY. GDB/LLDB is garbage. For debugging Visual Studio (for adults, not VSCode), or on special occassion WinDbg, is great. Raddbg may be awesome some day and may also support Linux. That'll be great. Today is not that day. Superluminal is spectacular. They're working very hard on a Linux version. It's taking them a long time because Linux is bad. > All major game engines I am aware of support native Linux builds and have for years, anyways. Unity and Unreal do have buttons to export to Linux. Most proprietary game engines don't have Linux clients. Linux for headless servers you control is fine. > 80% of the servers Yawn. The Linux pain is trying to deploy proprietary binaries that run on customer machines which are infinite in variation. Running headless on a single Linux image you control is very different. Anyhow. Let me know when you ship a game with 3D graphics to customers and have to deal with all their support issues!
    - arcfour 5mo ago
      Hey, want to race to install toolchains? I'll install everything I need to build the Linux kernel and, say, typical SDL2 applications. I'll give you a 3 hour head start, all you have to do is install Visual Studio, WDK, and the Windows SDK, and hope they play nicely with each other! Good luck! Then we can switch places so you can install for the 5.3% (and growing) of your gaming userbase that doesn't use an OS with ads in it. P.S. he who lives in the house of WinDbg is not allowed to throw stones. At anyone. Ever. Nobody thinks that it is "great," you must be kidding.
      - fyredge 5mo ago
        I think you are coming at this with very different priorities. For most people, installing tool chains is a one time job, that they can grit their teeth through if it works well for them. No one wants to constantly install or reinstall and make sure the installation process is lightning fast. It's the reason why Linux still hasn't taken off on desktop. People want good application support, not infinite customisations and blazing fast compile speeds. In fact, slow compile speeds might even give people an excuse to go chat with colleagues and take breaks. What you want is not what others want too
- Epa095 5mo ago
  > The calculus is very very very boring and simple. Game devs will support every single platform on the planet in which the cost to support that platform - both directly and long-term maintenance - is less than the increased revenue that platform provides. Companies end up not doing profitable things all the time, for many reasons. One rational reason is that while action 1 might be profitable, action 2 is even more profitable. So the fact that Linux is not supported does not show that it would not be profitable, but rather that there are other things the companies can use labour for which they think is even more profitable. If they could freely clone their employees (and "unclone" them afterwards) all profitable things would get done. (This is just nitpicking about your economic argument, I have no reason to think your conclusion is wrong).
  - forrestthewoods 5mo ago
    You are correct. You're talking about "opportunity cost" I kinda touched on it with "and long-term maintenance". For video game ports you can bypass the direct opportunity cost by doing a rev-share deal with one of a million port houses. They'll do 100% of the work to port to a new platform, and then you split revenue. It's not totally free because of course there's overhead. And if you want to do patches, DLC, sequels, etc etc there's the maintenance cost. Which is to say yes you're basically correct and I agree with you.

winrid 5mo ago

the other way around is kind of how libgdx games run on iOS :)

forrestthewoods 5mo ago

I don't need to imagine a made-up scenario that doesn't make sense. We can look at what has happened at face value. The calculus is very very very boring and simple. Game devs will support every single platform on the planet in which the cost to support that platform - both directly and long-term maintenance - is less than the increased revenue that platform provides. It is not uncommon for indie games on custom engines to support Windows, Playstation, Switch, Switch 2, Xbox. And, depending on the game, iOS or Android. Sometimes macOS although that's increasingly rare. Native Linux builds are pretty rare. Especially before Proton got pretty good with Steamdeck release. Supporting Linux is a monumentally tremendous pain in the ass. Radically more than literally any other platform. It is hands-down the hardest and most painful to support natively. So painful that emulating Win32 is a clear win. Valve's runtime helps a lot. And supporting another path is just a waste of time. Very sad!

arcfour 5mo ago
> Supporting Linux is a monumentally tremendous pain in the ass. Radically more than literally any other platform. It is hands-down the hardest and most painful to support natively. Funny, I have the same feelings after 5 seconds of using MSVC or looking at Win32 documentation. Or is it WinRT now, or is it .NET Core, or .NET Framework, or UWP or OLE or COM, or whatever the API du jour is which will be slightly incompatible and incomplete with the rest of the ecosystem in poorly documented and inscrutable ways? Performance profiling and debugging tools are critical for game development. What's your equivalent to strace again, the one that's built into the system natively? There isn't one? All major game engines I am aware of support native Linux builds and have for years, anyways. I guess there's a reason 80% of the servers in the world run Windows. Because it's so hard to develop for. Er, uh...no wait!
- forrestthewoods 5mo ago
  Sarcasm is an extremely poor method of communication. Speak plainly and clearly. > Performance profiling and debugging tools are critical for game development. Profiling and debugging tools are RADICALLY superior on Windows. RADICALLY. GDB/LLDB is garbage. For debugging Visual Studio (for adults, not VSCode), or on special occassion WinDbg, is great. Raddbg may be awesome some day and may also support Linux. That'll be great. Today is not that day. Superluminal is spectacular. They're working very hard on a Linux version. It's taking them a long time because Linux is bad. > All major game engines I am aware of support native Linux builds and have for years, anyways. Unity and Unreal do have buttons to export to Linux. Most proprietary game engines don't have Linux clients. Linux for headless servers you control is fine. > 80% of the servers Yawn. The Linux pain is trying to deploy proprietary binaries that run on customer machines which are infinite in variation. Running headless on a single Linux image you control is very different. Anyhow. Let me know when you ship a game with 3D graphics to customers and have to deal with all their support issues!
  - arcfour 5mo ago
    Hey, want to race to install toolchains? I'll install everything I need to build the Linux kernel and, say, typical SDL2 applications. I'll give you a 3 hour head start, all you have to do is install Visual Studio, WDK, and the Windows SDK, and hope they play nicely with each other! Good luck! Then we can switch places so you can install for the 5.3% (and growing) of your gaming userbase that doesn't use an OS with ads in it. P.S. he who lives in the house of WinDbg is not allowed to throw stones. At anyone. Ever. Nobody thinks that it is "great," you must be kidding.
    - fyredge 5mo ago
      I think you are coming at this with very different priorities. For most people, installing tool chains is a one time job, that they can grit their teeth through if it works well for them. No one wants to constantly install or reinstall and make sure the installation process is lightning fast. It's the reason why Linux still hasn't taken off on desktop. People want good application support, not infinite customisations and blazing fast compile speeds. In fact, slow compile speeds might even give people an excuse to go chat with colleagues and take breaks. What you want is not what others want too
Epa095 5mo ago
> The calculus is very very very boring and simple. Game devs will support every single platform on the planet in which the cost to support that platform - both directly and long-term maintenance - is less than the increased revenue that platform provides. Companies end up not doing profitable things all the time, for many reasons. One rational reason is that while action 1 might be profitable, action 2 is even more profitable. So the fact that Linux is not supported does not show that it would not be profitable, but rather that there are other things the companies can use labour for which they think is even more profitable. If they could freely clone their employees (and "unclone" them afterwards) all profitable things would get done. (This is just nitpicking about your economic argument, I have no reason to think your conclusion is wrong).
- forrestthewoods 5mo ago
  You are correct. You're talking about "opportunity cost" I kinda touched on it with "and long-term maintenance". For video game ports you can bypass the direct opportunity cost by doing a rev-share deal with one of a million port houses. They'll do 100% of the work to port to a new platform, and then you split revenue. It's not totally free because of course there's overhead. And if you want to do patches, DLC, sequels, etc etc there's the maintenance cost. Which is to say yes you're basically correct and I agree with you.